Browsing Tag

80’s Pop

MissHearMeClick Unlocked a Haven of Whimsical 80s Pop and 90s Lo-Fi Rock in ‘A Place with No Walls’

Posted on 18 May 2026

MissHearMeClick, the artistic moniker of independent singer-songwriter and self-produced artist Feona Samson, lets 80s pop and 90s lo-fi rock swell with blockbuster-esque emotion in A Place with No Walls, her latest single created in collaboration with Goff Johnson.

The sticky-sweet burst of euphoria, mined from the deepest contours of the soul, leaves you powerless in the face of its all-consuming, whimsically rendered ecstasy. The soaring guitar chords lift the production to heights that chart-toppers struggle to reach, while the vocals entrench themselves in pretence-less joy, thematically visualising the lyrical underpinnings that tempt you to find the space where you can set your soul free.

Since beginning her recording path in 2022, Samson has shaped MissHearMeClick into a project guided by belonging, connection, emotional discovery, and the open-hearted thrill of building songs from the ground up. A Place with No Walls carries that ethos with arms wide open, inviting lovers, dreamers, and the spiritually weary into a home without borders, where laughter, music, courage, and shared humanity feed the soul.

There is a rare emotional generosity in the way this single refuses cynicism and chooses radiance with full conviction. Your soul would resent you for skipping this track!

A Place with No Walls is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Disco-Drenched Euphoria and Rose-Tinted Gratitude Light Up Kevin Smeltzer’s Synth Pop Rush, Unsurvivable

Posted on 1 May 2026
Kevin Smeltzer

The euphonia of retro synth pop euphoria surges through Kevin Smeltzer’s Unsurvivable, a riotously uplifting disco-drenched earworm from the instantly magnetic pop breakthrough artist. The independent singer-songwriter from Thunder Bay, Ontario, has moulded his pop chops around the signature sounds of George Michael and Sting, while incorporating the sonic complexity of The Beatles into his arrangements. If John Lennon wrote 80s pop floorfillers, they’d land with the same infectiously zealous soul and scintillation that runs right through Unsurvivable.

Designed to give lusts for life their bite back, Unsurvivable is the ultimate reminder of what it means to live, to put on the rose-tinted glasses and find the gratitude and beauty ready to be perceived from a fresh perspective.

It’s practically enough to give you a spiritually kinetic awakening. Beneath the glossy lift of the synth-driven momentum, there’s existential weight in the writing. Kevin Smeltzer channels mortality into movement, letting urgency and emotional directness hit at full force while keeping the whole thing gloriously light on its feet.

That balance runs through the wider world around his debut album, a 16-track reckoning with ego, fear, desire and identity. Built alongside a full-time career outside music, it marks him as a songwriter with plenty to say, and the nerve to say it louder than most.

Unsurvivable is now available on all major streaming platforms. Find your preferred way to listen on the artist’s official website. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Haven Bell let heartbreak shimmer like strobe lights in his heady-with-80s-nostalgia pop anthem, Knife in the Heart

Posted on 2 November 2025

Haven Bell has taken himself from Kosovo to New York, but his sound will take him to a worldwide arena, especially now that his new release, Knife in the Heart, is on the airwaves after its Halloween debut. His signature shimmer pop sound is more scintillating than ever in the heady-with-80s nostalgia synth pop hit, which reincarnates the atmospheric percussion with an even more affecting pulse, lays the reverb on thick and exhibits what it means to pour your heart and soul out over strobing synths.

The single arrives in the lead-up to his upcoming EP Blue Hour, which is set to mark a pivotal chapter in the evolution of his emotive approach to songwriting. Since self-releasing Blue in 2017 and chasing down catharsis in Stories of a Summer in 2020, Bell has never strayed from vulnerability. But in Knife in the Heart, he sharpened it. He pulled the pain of fading intimacy into glossy pop arrangements that don’t cut the emotion down for the sake of polish. His sultry vocal style, poetic leanings and affection for nostalgic aesthetics collide to render a bruising dose of electropop melancholia. It’s cinematic, but never superficial.

Knife in the Heart is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 


Review by Amelia Vandergast

ROMAANCE Scattered Stardust and Synth Euphoria in ‘D.I.S.C.O.’

Posted on 16 September 2025

ROMAANCE chose to open their debut LP, Dust Among the Stars, with D.I.S.C.O., and from the first glint of synth strobe, they make it clear this is no ordinary dancefloor filler. Imagine a Kate Bush and The Human League mash-up, throw in a shot of Apoptygma Berzerk, finish it with the unflinching glamour of 80s Madonna, and you will be somewhere near the sonic cosmos ROMAANCE have crafted.

So much more than a sequence of synth pulses, phasers, and chameleonic harmonies, D.I.S.C.O. is the vision of a dualistic force leaving neon confetti in your rhythmic pulses and the glitter-ball glow of transcendence in your chest. Each progression lands like a new revelation, defying its electronica foundations with humanistic oscillations of pure devotion as the vocals sanctify the altar we find on the dancefloor.

The elusive collective, brought to life by Jason Wann, doesn’t just flirt with disco-pop euphoria, they command it with cinematic gravitas, turning Dust Among the Stars into a place for star-crossed dancers to finally find themselves.

D.I.S.C.O. is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Laptop Singers & Chris Cron Uncorked a Pop Paradox in ‘Drinking to Get Sober’

Posted on 16 May 2025

Starting with an effervescent euphonic burst of harmony, Drinking to Get Sober instantly delivers everything we’ve come to love about Laptop Singers and their affectingly accordant approach to pushing traditional songwriting chops into the modern music scene and allowing them to tear through the noise of instant gratification.

With shimmering synth lines and twilight oscillating in the panorama of a production, Drinking to Get Sober caresses you into an expansive space, nestled away from material reality, constructed by candour and compassion. The lyrics are grounded in bruised sincerity without ever crossing into melodrama—just the brutal clarity of self-awareness.

The vocals, delivered in collaboration with Chris Cron, will strike all the right chords for fans of Sam Fender as they relay how the existential ache doesn’t stop when you come of age. Every chapter has its own growing pains, which get even sharper as you make your way further through life and are confronted with how little time you’ve got left to figure it all out and reach a point of self-actualisation.

Hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden, Per and Lars Andersson have channelled decades of songwriting experience into Laptop Singers since 2020. With a back catalogue spanning lush ambient detours and glitter-drenched pop, their most emotive work to date is here, with one of their most emotionally lucid collaborations yet.

Drinking to Get Sober is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Emilie Thorsby Poured Pop-Rock Fuel in the Fire of Empowerment with ‘Amazing as Hell’

Posted on 25 April 2025

For anyone familiar with the pressure of contorting into a distortion until all that remains visible is a hollow façade, only to find acceptance still painfully elusive, Emilie Thorsby’s single ‘Amazing as Hell’ is your alt-pop rebellion wrapped in compassion. The track delivers a powerful cascade of empathy, injecting fuel into weary hearts desperate for empowerment.

With theatrical flair, Thorsby effortlessly navigates a myriad of styles—synth-pop hooks dissolve fluidly into baroque pop motifs before surging into bold, Prince-esque rock riffs. Each stylistic shift visually manifests the many masks we don to gain approval from the shifting gaze of those around us. Yet at the centre remains Thorsby’s unapologetically striking vocals, soaring confidently over an infectious nostalgia-inducing production, reminiscent of pop’s golden decades, the 80s and 90s.

Drawing deeply from her personal narrative of resilience, Thorsby confronts past betrayals and abuses—relationships that diminished her worth, leaving emotional scars she transforms into powerful affirmations. Her anthem insists fiercely that inadequacy lies not within ourselves but in the eyes of those incapable of truly seeing us. ‘Amazing as Hell’ holds a mirror to our self-doubt, boldly declaring it baseless and invalid.

Thorsby’s single is a declaration of independence from societal expectations, confidently crafted and passionately performed.

‘Amazing as Hell’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

OCEANS OF TEARS Delivered a Neon-Lit Lifeline with ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’

Posted on 27 March 2025

After starting with the iconic ‘snap out of it’ line by Cher in Moonstruck, which proves OCEANS OF TEARS has their finger on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist, ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ slides into a high-energy synthesis of 80s-spiked pop rock which serves an infectious chorus as the main sonic dish in this existential utopia.

With synth lines streaming neon lights into the production in place of a cliché rock riff, the track remains a seamless ride through synth-pop nostalgia while OCEANS OF TEARS maintains a firm grip on what brings distinctive panache to his sound.

Drawn from Steve W. Boily’s rock musical, Bullet in a Gun, ‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ confronts despair at its most unfiltered, capturing the raw agony of losing everything—love, work, pride. In a global climate weighed down by economic uncertainty, looming tariffs, and widespread job insecurity, the soul-stirring lyrics feel heartbreakingly real and strike harder than ever. Ian Hardwick’s guest vocals amplify the emotional intensity, channelling betrayal, failure, and isolation into a powerful anthem of desperation.

This is pop-rock sharpened to a neon-lit edge; honest, relentless, and emotionally charged.

‘LOSING MY WILL TO LIVE’ is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Shanear Nicole’s ‘THE BEGINNING’ Pulses with 80s-Tinged Electro-Pop Alchemy

Posted on 11 February 2025

Shanear Nicole signalled a new era in pop with THE BEGINNING, a debut single that ebbs and flows with brooding intensity before bursting into euphoric waves of synth-driven energy.

The bass-swathed turbulence underpins her vocals as they carry an air of innocence without naivety, while each rhythmic pulse electrifies the ethereal atmosphere. With a tempo that moves at its own pace rather than chasing chart-friendly conventions, THE BEGINNING thrives in its ability to be savoured instead of mindlessly devoured.

The intricately authentic nature of the release is no coincidence; while sonically it may fall into the pop sphere, Nicole utilises her ballet and hip-hop background to push movement into melody with effortless control. The influence of 80s pioneers like Madonna, David Bowie, and Tears for Fears is unmistakable, yet filtered through her own aesthetic, which pulls from the rebellious spirit of Vivienne Westwood and the cinematic allure of the New Romantics – Chappell Roan has brand new competition.

Every layer of synth and every vocal inflection serves the emotional weight of the single which explores how time is finite, but new possibilities are endless. Feel the emotive gravity weigh down on you as your soul transcends by streaming THE BEGINNING featuring Matthew Tryba on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Cormac is a conduit of pure poetic longing in his Broadway-esque cover of ‘Days Like These’

Posted on 27 November 2024

Cormac’s cover of ‘Days Like These’ sounds as though it has been simultaneously torn from a Broadway musical and a heart-wrenching 80s blockbuster. Adding to the dynamic appeal of the poetically meditative release are the tinges of alt-country, which wind their way into the scintillating production through guitars that wrap around Cormac’s arcanely pure harmonies.

As a conduit of poetic longing, there are few artists who can arrest your psyche with as much intimacy as Cormac. There’s also no escaping the festive nuances, made tangible through the twinkling glimmers in the single; it is as though the progressions are guided by a north star.

As the youngest singer ever to sign with the global label Decca four years ago, Cormac Thompson has continued to be one to watch. Having forged his path as an independent artist, he won ‘Artist of the Year’ (Young Adult) at Nashville’s Josie Music Awards in 2023, and he’s nominated again for 2024. Cormac has continued to enthral audiences, releasing two albums, amassing over 2.2 million Spotify streams, and racking up over 8 million views on YouTube.

Days Like These is now available to stream on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Al Coffey became sad boy synth-pop royalty with his latest single, I Get Sad

Posted on 4 October 2024

The UK’s most evocative icon of queer sad boy synth-pop, Al Coffey, overloaded the airwaves with mesmeric melancholy with his latest single, I Get Sad. Each vocal note reverberantly hums as it drips honey over the nostalgia-soaked synth hooks that take you back to the 80s via a route never taken.

Imagine the chord progressions of Nick Cave fused with a Chris Isaak-esque atmosphere lit up by the neon lights of The Midnight and The Weeknd, and you’ll be close to getting an idea of how much of a sanctuary I Get Sad delivers as it runs through the reprise, ‘I get sad and you’re the reason why”.

Just as sharp as Josh Savage’s hits, I Get Sad is the ultimate attestation to Al Coffey’s ability to paint striking vignettes with his synth strokes. With his mission to make 2024 his breakthrough year, now is the time to transplant the affecting ingenuity of Al Coffey on your radar. Following the release of I Get Sad, there are teasings of live performances and more hits in the pipeline.

Stream I Get Sad on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast